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These are all known naturally (i think) created viruses and diseases.
But what about man-made possibilities... like GMO crops? Perhaps one day, one of the Gm companies will develop something that gets into the food system (humans and animals) and has an ill effect on anything eating it. These bio crops are being developed so rapidly and with minimal testing, it is definitely worrisome.
Bio tech is relatively new and we are just scratching the surface. Who knows what the next 25-50 years brings...
What do you mean by that? For sure, an 80-90% death rate of the entire population would certainly "effect a real change." That would essentially be an "extinction event" for civilized mankind. We would be back to the stone age for about a generation before regaining even iron working capability.
That's a silly notion. An eighty to ninety percent drop in world population would leave .7 to 1.4 billion people left. A similar drop in the US population would leave thirty-three to sixty-six million. Both this country and the entire world were in the midst of the late Industrial Revolution with population levels in this range.
It would be different today only in that there is a larger infrastruce and a larger body of accumulated information available. Neither would disappear.
Even in the case of a designer virus that had a lengthy incubation period of several weeks to maximize the spread, it wouldn't affect more than 20% of the population.
1918 was in the modern era, the great influenza epidemic probably didn't affect more than 20% of the population, but millions died.
1918 was in the modern era, the great influenza epidemic probably didn't affect more than 20% of the population, but millions died.
However, it was before the "clean house" boom that was engendered by soap company-sponsored radio dramas, before antibiotics and vaccines, and a heck of a lot of doctors and hospital staff still didn't really believe in sterilization.
I do think a severe pandemic is possible, but it will probably be something surprising that will have overcome normal methods. Or possibly it will overcome political correctness...mass quarantine isn't politically correct these days.
That's a silly notion. An eighty to ninety percent drop in world population would leave .7 to 1.4 billion people left. A similar drop in the US population would leave thirty-three to sixty-six million. Both this country and the entire world were in the midst of the late Industrial Revolution with population levels in this range.
It would be different today only in that there is a larger infrastruce and a larger body of accumulated information available. Neither would disappear.
you are partly correct, a 90% reduction in the worlds population would leave about .7 of a billion people.
however in the UK this would leave about 6 million people, coincidentally this is exactly the same amount of people that lived here in the 18th Century just as the Industrial Revolution was getting started.
The Plague/Black Death left about 2 million people. the infrastructure would be unusable without electricity and oil to power it, without these things to power machinery no more fossil fuels could be mined even if they still exist in the ground.
information would remain you are correct, but what would disappear is the ability to use it in any constructive manner, maybe without power and oil people will be too busy putting food on the table to bother reinventing anything.
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Originally Posted by bigpaul
you are partly correct, a 90% reduction in the worlds population would leave about .7 of a billion people.
however in the UK this would leave about 6 million people, coincidentally this is exactly the same amount of people that lived here in the 18th Century just as the Industrial Revolution was getting started.
The Plague/Black Death left about 2 million people. the infrastructure would be unusable without electricity and oil to power it, without these things to power machinery no more fossil fuels could be mined even if they still exist in the ground.
information would remain you are correct, but what would disappear is the ability to use it in any constructive manner, maybe without power and oil people will be too busy putting food on the table to bother reinventing anything.
You would see scavenged solar, then small refinery operations, followed by oil production, reopening of small electric plants. I live near a dam. It doesn't take a lot to make it work and we'd have regional power back on PDQ.
The thing would be how to divvy up the left over stuff and property. Probably war lords would arise and grab as much territory as they could hold, backed with abandoned armor and military weaponry.
The big problems would be having like 130 nuclear power plants melting down through lack of attention and lack of knowledge. Can you see some moron figure out how to lift the rods into a position where they could make an unrestrained reaction, and then leave them - ka-boom, there goes like three states!
with a 10% or possibly less survival rate we aren't going to be doing much apart from putting food on the table, anything else is wishful thinking.
the no. 1 job every day will be making sure that everyone in your group is doing all they can to ensure enough food is being grown, reared, foraged or caught for us all to carry on surviving, for the first few years maybe decades there wont be any surplus, so spending time on other "projects" will be a non starter and counter productive.
You would see scavenged solar, then small refinery operations, followed by oil production, reopening of small electric plants. I live near a dam. It doesn't take a lot to make it work and we'd have regional power back on PDQ.
The thing would be how to divvy up the left over stuff and property. Probably war lords would arise and grab as much territory as they could hold, backed with abandoned armor and military weaponry.
The big problems would be having like 130 nuclear power plants melting down through lack of attention and lack of knowledge. Can you see some moron figure out how to lift the rods into a position where they could make an unrestrained reaction, and then leave them - ka-boom, there goes like three states!
No, because all that--any of it, really--depends on the current worldwide transportation and communication structure, the worldwide distribution of labor and materiel production. Nothing is close to the surface anymore to be scratched up with picks and shovels and hauled by mule-driven barges.
Is it possible for modern civilization to be severely devastated by some plague or disease?
Plagues and disease have, or course, devastated civilizations of the past like Europe a few times, and the new world obviously. So this is not fantasy or science fiction.
And I am not talking about a zombie virus or like the Strain. I am just talking about a regular virus, or disease that just kills you.
With our modern medicine, can we pretty much stop anything from spreading around too badly? We have diseases like heart and cancer that kill off lots of people, but I am talking about an apocalyptic or almost apocalyptic number of casualties.
I guess more along the lines of The Last Ship tv series.
It's really just a question of when.
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